Industrial process lines which handle sheet or strip material often need to be provided with means for cutting the sheet or strip. When using conventional guillotine or sawing techniques, the line must be halted for the cutting operation. It is, however, desirable to avoid halting the process line and to provide cutting means which are compatible with the movement of the sheet or strip to give a cut of acceptable quality without damage to the cutting means.
An example is in the starting of a coil of sheet or strip material, when the leading length of the material is frequently below the desired product standard for the coiled material. Thus, for example, for strip material issuing from a coating plant, the leading end of the strip may not be evenly coated, while for strip issuing from a laminating plant, the leading end may be a sub-standard laminate resulting from difference in feeding speeds and operating speeds. Yet again, in a metal rolling process, absence of tension on the strip at the leading end may result in an unacceptable shape in the initial lengths of strip. Any one of such poorly shaped materials, if used as the basis of a coil, generates an imperfect cylinder on the spool on which the coil is to be formed and can thus not only affect the accuracy of coiling in the early laps but can even destroy the quality of the finished material by the carrying through of imperfections of the leading lengths of the material right through the coil. It is at present common practice to cut off the early lengths of the material and strip the mis-shaped material from the spool in a manual operation before the use of a belt wrapper to introduce material to the spool.